BUNGO STRAY DOGS SHORT STORIES

count to 8

Brief summary: Dazai has started working at the ADA, but some old habits never die.

They were the same age, and yet so different. Well of course, Kunikida wasn't expecting them to be identical, but he also wasn't expecting him to look so, blank. Dazai had passed his entrance exam with ease and was now being introduced to the rest of the detective agency. But there was something wrong in the younger man's gaze. Despite his rather flamboyant and playful behaviour. Dazai looked as though the world should have ended years ago. A restless, almost fidgety energy being masked by careless comments and inappropriate smiles. They were the same age, but Dazai was different.

They were assigned to be partners, working on cases together, bonding. However the bonding part seemed more interesting than any of the cases they solved. Dazai was hiding things, not purposefully, but it was as though he were holding a diary in front of Kunikidas face, mocking the mans curiosity. It bugged Kunikida that he could not read Dazai, but he didn't try to pry. It was obvious the new recruit did not want to be found out.

"Am I nice to look that?" Dazai spoke, dangling his legs over the harbours edge. The duo were out on a break.

"Pardon?"

"Youre staring at me, honestly Kunikida if you wanted to say something just be done with it already."

"Where were you employed before you joined the agency?"

"Thats a secret," Dazai looked out over the piers water. "If you guess it right, I'll tell you."

And so Kunikida spent the afternoon guessing with no reward. He was stumped, rattling off careers, jobs and ideas to no avail. With no clue to what Dazai could have been, they returned to work.

Dazai shuffled into his apartment. The remants of the day, washed away with the running water of his nightly shower. Redressing his arms, and shifting into loose apparel, he settled in for the night.
It had been two whole years, and Dazai still felt his past self seep in through the cracks of the windows, the shadows caused by the lowering sun. He welcomed the ghost of him back, allowed the weight to settle into his bones.
And now, in the quiet abyss of his home, he let the dishevelled parts of himself see the light. Allowed it to grimace and growl at the warm welcome he got at the detective agency. He allowed the overwhelming need to die, the lonely ghost of him, to be swallowed up by the light.

He remembered the times he had been dragged to his old boss, he remembered  the times the doctor would treat his wounds, his failed attempts of self harm. He remembered the times Elise would sit beside him, marvelling at the damage Dazai often caused himself.
Often, the other members of the rising mafia would criticise the way Mori pampered Dazai. It was anything but that, it was painful treatments, it was cold nights spent in a rickety bed and it was the promise that the doctor wouldn't allow a powerful asset of his to die just yet, and it was torture.

Looking back at it, Dazai knew he was being spoiled. He know that if Mori didn't need him, the man would cause him to suffer in the darkness alone. Having a suicidal, unpredictable teen in his midst must have been tiring. Dazai was glad he picked up some useful tips from his many trips to Dr. Mori. He counted them off on his fingers, saying them outloud to no-one but himself.

"One, How to apply burn cream." Dazai watched the sun set behind the trees.

"Two, how to disinfect a wound." He turns the kitchen stove on.

"Three, how to relocate a dislocated shoulder." Dazai cut up greens, mushrooms, anything he could throw into his small, lonely dinner.

"Four, how to wrap up a sprain." Dazai set the broth on the stove, seasoning it.

"Five, how to resuscitate." The ex-mafia member opened up a bottle of cola. Letting the bubbles slip down his throat.

"Six, how to reduce the swelling on bruises." Dazai let the noodles simmer in its water.

"Seven, how to stitch up wounds." He set the table for one, lighting a candle and watching the flame flicker. There was one thing Mori taught Dazai that was most important. He smiled to himself as he assembled his effortless attempt at ramen.

"Eight," He raised a glass of cola to the empty chair sitting across from him, as if he were toasting to a ghost. "How to die and die again." And just like that a new chapter in his life appeared. One where the antagonist he used to be  cowered in the light that the ADA supplied. A life he promised for an old friend, and a life that became just a whole lot more beautiful.